More on SCO vs. IBM Lawsuit 538
Colin Stanners writes "SCO has held a TeleConference and put up a page with information on their lawsuit against IBM. The key phrase (from their complaint) is: 'It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach UNIX performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of UNIX code, methods or concepts to achieve such performance, and coordination by a larger developer, such as IBM.' Their page also includes a Q&A, presentation, and exhibits, although these are mostly licensing agreements and not code." Bruce Perens had an interesting comment on the situation, more than one group is trying to organize a boycott, and Newsforge has a story based on SCO's press conference this morning. Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
Upside (Score:5, Insightful)
GPL in court (Score:4, Insightful)
SCO is also party to the GPL, which invalidates their patent portfolio for any of their patents that happen to have been used in a Linux system that they distributed. Under the GPL terms, if you distribute your patented practice in GPL software, you must grant a license to everyone to make use of that patent in any GPL software, for any field of use.
Would be interesting if it comes to court, if nothing else, just to see just how enforcable GPL is.
I asked this before, answer this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would they poke the T-Rex that is IBM with a stick, unless they think they can bring it down?
We can sit around laughing or bitching or whining or moaning, but what will happen if there turns out to be code in Linux that we dont have the rights to, either by way of trade secrets or patents?
Can all the SysV and other SCO stuff be removed without killing Linux? Would a setback be weeks, months, years, or would it be the end?
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
He hit it right on the head here. After a lawsuit like this, who'd want to work with them? It's not worth the risk...
Linux. New and improved? (Score:2, Insightful)
So how long has this linux thing been going on, then? A mere day and a half, from the sound of things. And there aren't tens of thousands more programmers available for linux than any other O/S, are there?
Re:I asked this before, answer this time (Score:5, Insightful)
We can sit around laughing or bitching or whining or moaning, but what will happen if there turns out to be code in Linux that we dont have the rights to, either by way of trade secrets or patents?
They distribute their own distro of Linux, Caldera Linux. So all the code there is in Linux, they have distributed themselves under the GPL. So we have the rights to it. This is really quite funny :-).
Fighting Back! (Score:5, Insightful)
What about Solaris? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for SCO, none of the primary UNIX vendors ever developed a UNIX "flavor" to operate on an Intel-based processor chip set. This is because the earlier Intel processors were considered to have inadequate processing power for use in the more demanding enterprise market applications.
What about the x86 version of Solaris?
"Wired" magazine on drugs (Score:2, Insightful)
UNIX was developed by Ken Thomson in the 1960's. There was no AT&T USL in the 1960's.
More [bell-labs.com]
Re:Beating a dead horse... (Score:2, Insightful)
Except the recipe is the source code.
Re:Upside (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I would like to agree with your sentiment, unfortunately, it doesn't hold true. As the result of defeating a strawman, you get... A pile of straw.
I personally find it amazing that SCO would even suggest this as a reason to sue for IP violations. The speed of Linux development has NO connection whatsoever with SCO, aside from what code they VOLUNTARILY added to the open source community. And, even if their claim did have even a hint of validity (which it does not), UCB, AT&T, and DEC (aka Compaq) would all have just as much, if not more, right to sue by that logic.
Sad.
But, just to save people the trouble of rumblings of a boycott... What exactly would folks boycott? This suit comes as an end-of-life move by a defunct company, apparently looking to utterly destroy their once-good reputation to toss a few bucks to their stockholders. They just don't have anything (of relevance in the past decade) to boycott About the only thing that might get the message to them consists of those same stockholders waking up, realizing that, regardless of the outcome of this frivolous suit SCO will no longer exist, and dumping their shares as fast as physically possible. Perhaps killing SCO before this all goes through would remedy the situation, but nothing else will.
boycott shmoycott (Score:2, Insightful)
SCO is in the same position as Intergraph before it, and is trying the same gag. They're a formerly large and influential company, fallen to the point of minnowhood. They have no prospect of growing significantly, have no revenue, and no significant human capital. So they've gone the patent litigation route.
There's no obvious "strikebacks" at such a company (they're a lot like a "litigation proof" private citizen). Consumer actions or intensified competition won't work, as that is intended to interfere with revenue streams they don't have in the first place. Large tech companies (particularly IBM) might normally unleash a broadside of retaliatory IP lawsuits, but again SCO won't care much - that would interfere with revenue they don't have or enjoin actions they aren't taking. Their current claim is huge, but they'll try to negociate a more "reasonable" sum with IBM - one that would probably be less than the cost to IBM of the litigation.
Intel wouldn't roll over for Intergraph, and I'd guess IBM won't for SCO.
Re:IBM *buy* SCO? WTF? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I asked this before, answer this time (Score:5, Insightful)
This is suicide by cop[1].
Or it's something similarly twisted. SCO is simply dead. The back
story may be interesting though.
The news.com story notes that SCO may be pissed over the failure of
Project Monterey, which was aimed at reimplementing GNU/Linux as a
proprietary Unix for the Itanic (that's just so wrong so many ways I
won't even start).
Just a few off-the-cuff observations.
- You don't launch a land war in Asia.
- You don't launch a billion-dollar patent battle with IBM, if your
strategy is in fact to win that battle.
- Corrolary of the above is that you're either trying to lose, you're
not calling the shots, or you're aiming to win another battle.
These are not mutually exclusive, though options 2 & 3 are the most
likely pairing.
- Aside: IBM generates over $1b (approaching 1.5b IIRC) annually in
patent licensing revenues. Their patent portfolio numbers over
22,000. IBM is the single largest holder and recipient of US patent
grants.
- Theory: somebody's trying to sow patent problems for IBM, and/or
tie up IBM legal in a suit, while somebody else pulls a fast one.
- Theory: Caldera wants to prod IBM into reviving the DR-DOS suit (or
something similar) against Microsoft (or other parties). I find
this unlikely, but mention it for completeness.
- Theory: Caldera's management is trying to avoid breach-of-
fiduciary-interest or other similar charges, while disposing of the
company while putatively pursuing a fiduciary interest of the
company.
- Theory: This is Wang v. Netscape again. In that case, Microsoft
bought a significant interest in the dying Wang corporation, and
Wang pursued patent suits against Netscape. The patent was
eventually invalidated, but such battles are costly.
- Theory: (left field variety) LFP or similar[2] have corraled
Caldera into making a blatent demonstration of just how broken the
patent system is by going after its (the patent system's) largest
beneficiary.
Watch this space, things got interesting.
Peace.
--------------------
Notes:
1. If you're not familiar with the term: a perp assaults a police
officer, in such a way that the cop has to use deadly force. This
being the apparently desired outcome of the perp.
2. LPF: League for Programming Freedom, an anti-patent group associated
with Richard M. Stallman.
Credit to Karsten on this one. This is good enough that it needs to be posted here.
We use SCO... (Score:4, Insightful)
I recently had a discussion with our SCO account manager and suggested to him that SCO was "perceived" (ha!) as dying, that OpenUnix 8 was a marketing disaster and no-one is asking for Unixware 7.1.3. We had met at the Linux Expo last year and he seemed more interested in pushing Linux than Unixware. The fact that SCO have stopped developing an Itanium port of Unixware, and Openserver (their really old OS) is pretty much for legacy sites only, they seem to be pinning their future on UnitedLinux.
We got onto the subject of patents and he tried to explain how their licensing scheme would only be used in situations where other companies were using code that enabled SCO apps to run under Linux. Hmm. I told him that wasn't how it appeared and that SCO looked as if they were desperate to make money and this is their last resort. I then suggested they had an issue with marketing. It now transpires he was either misinformed, or lying. No-one here is surprised or shocked.
My manager has a meeting with SCO in a couple of weeks and I'll be sure to brief him on their current tactics first.
On a different note, I find it strange that SCO and IBM were working together on Monterrey, a project that would supposedly combine Unixware and AIX for IA-64. This was going to have the Unixware kernel which I always found odd as my understanding is that the AIX kernel is far more advanced. The project seemed to fall apart and both companies developed their own products with added support for Linux compatibility. Now SCO is suing IBM for patent infringement...
I personally hope that SCO dies, or that IBM buys them out and releases the patented code as GPL. I actually quite like Unixware 7 as it's about as pure an implementation of System V you can get (which is interesting when compared with other Unices which have differing degrees of SysV/BSD), but if Unixware dying is the price for SCO dying, then it'll be worth it.
Re:I asked this before, answer this time (Score:3, Insightful)
It's in the GPL, section 7.
They cannot restrict the patent to GPL'ed software that has only been released by them. If they do so, they cannot distribute under the GPL, which means they cannot distribute the code at all, and they cannot make it a part of their Linux Distribution.
Re:why? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, this must be entirely at the behest and with the intent of their majority holding group....Canopy Group [slashdot.org]
If someone can create a list of companies that Canopy Group has a majority stake in, then you have a focus for a boycott.
Re:Linux. New and improved? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What a tacky way to extort money... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't hire coders! (Score:3, Insightful)
they've lost before they start (Score:4, Insightful)
Shared libraries are by their nature unique creations based on various decisions to write code in certain ways, which are in great part random decisions of the software developers who create the shared library code base. There is no established way to create a specific shared library and the random choices in the location and access calls for "hooks" that are part of the creation of any shared library. Therefore, the mathematical probability of a customer being able to recreate the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries without unauthorized access to or use of the source code of the SCO OpenServer Shared Libraries is nil.
Aside from the insult proffered to programmers everywhere (calling our decisions "random"), there's the real problem that it IS possible to duplicate functionality in shared libraries without the source code. Check out WINE as an excellent example.
Re:Ha ha! You beat me to it! (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt that anyone will miss them once IBM is finished mopping the floor with them.
Re: Whatever SCO (Score:5, Insightful)
> > "It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach UNIX performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of UNIX code"
> Sounds like Penis envy to me.
It's an incredibly stupid a priori claim to base a court case on, for sure. Do they expect the court to just accept it as a given and move directly to the penalty phase?
Different company (Score:1, Insightful)
Just for the record, the company called SCO five years ago was a different company. Caldera purchased the IP when the original SCO ("Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.") died. (The rest of the old SCO is now Tarantella, Inc., which is struggling, but still around, and still occupying the old SCO headquarters in Santa Cruz, CA.)
When Caldera realized they weren't making any money off of their Linux products, they revived the old SCO trademark as "SCO Group".
So, while I agree with the sentiment of your post, I think your comparison of this SCO to the SCO of 5 years ago is meaningless. They're two different companies. The only thing they have in common is the name and ownership of the System V source.
Re:IBM *buy* SCO? WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
But then, I'm Machivellian. Most corporations are too. But are we the same Machievellian? :-)
Bruce
Re:'shared source' comment over at lwn.net (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the point is that if you've seen MSFT's source code you can no longer participate in developing anything related to a MSFT product; you'd be vulnerable to accusations of learning something from seeing that code and using the knowledge in your product.
Whether or not anything of value can be learned from viewing MSFT code is a different matter...
Re:Trade secrets only as good as their protection (Score:3, Insightful)
Bruce
Re:The meat of the complaint appears to be pts. 50 (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't this actually good for Linux? (Score:2, Insightful)
SCO group is acknowledging that Linux is as good as its Unix if anything through this lawsuit. It's like SCO telling its customers that Linux has competant enterprise functionality. This sounds like a great news for Linux to me.